


the foxhole hotshots

by stormwarnings



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Firefighters, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ensemble Cast, Fluff, Focus on Friendships, Found Family, Lots of Fire Imagery, Multi, aftg rbb 2021, geek squad, less 'slow burn' and more 'waking up and realizing theyre your best friend', snapshots sorta, softer world, wildland firefighting yall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:34:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29941794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stormwarnings/pseuds/stormwarnings
Summary: Neil had gotten used to quick turnarounds, what with the suddenness that inmate firefighting often had. He’d learned to go where he was directed, when he was directed. But this was a different kind of toughness, the looks on the rest of the crew’s faces as they loaded up their gear. It wasn’t grim, or determined; they knew what they were heading for, and they were ready for it.They were excited for it.He wondered, briefly, why he was here. This was everything he’d sworn never to do. He didn’t love fire, not like these people did, and he didn’t love the land, not like they did. But he glanced around and saw them all talking and laughing, and him on the outside, and he thought, that. They were all pretty asshole-ish people. But for some reason all of them, even Andrew-Minyard-his-maybe-psycho-roommate, wanted to be here. Wanted to do this together. Wanted to be part of this family.Neil wanted that with a bone-deep ache, so much it hurt.
Relationships: Jeremy Knox/Jean Moreau, Katelyn/Aaron Minyard, Matt Boyd/Danielle "Dan" Wilds, Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard, Nicky Hemmick/Erik Klose, Seth Gordon/Allison Reynolds/Renee Walker
Comments: 5
Kudos: 97
Collections: AFTG Reverse Big Bang 2021





	the foxhole hotshots

**Author's Note:**

  * For [enifmiimfine (gahhhastly)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gahhhastly/gifts).



> well its finally here! ive spent a few months working on this with my AMAZING artist (thank you for being a cheerleader and person to bounce ideas off too <3) [jes](https://enifmiimfine.tumblr.com/)
> 
> link to the lovely lovely art is [here](https://enifmiimfine.tumblr.com/post/645193658747977728/my-art-for-the-aftg-reverse-big-bang)
> 
> here we are :)

Neil stood with a duffel over his shoulder, in the horrid heat of California’s late spring, and he stared around the clearing feeling distinctly out of place and off-balance. It was pretty, the pavement surrounded by tall pine trees, the unassuming log buildings and the toolsheds tucked in the shadows, the cars parked under the dappled sunlight. The sign in front of the main building. _Foxhole Hotshots._

Neil wished, desperately, for the smell of a cigarette. It would have been reassuring in this moment, as he stood before an unassuming building and did the opposite of what his mother had ever wanted. But, he supposed, he had neither a cigarette nor his mother, and so he would make do with what the choices he was given.

“Josten,” someone called, and Neil glanced up after half a second.

The man who stood in front of him had dark hair cut short. He was a harsh kind of person, with tribal tattoos on his forearms and a worn shirt that said _EMT Class of ’86: Best in the West_. He had stern eyes and smile lines, and a large knife strapped to the belt of his duty pants. He was the kind of man Neil would’ve stayed away from, once upon a time. But Neil had spent five years in prison, now, and found himself a new identity. Neil had found himself fighting fires in the raging heat of California, and so Neil was standing here, in front of David Wymack, and signing his life over for the next eight months – to the Foxhole Hotshots, an elite wildland firefighting crew who took on inmate firefighters and gave them another chance. 

“Come on in,” Wymack said. “That all you got?”

Neil glanced down at the singular duffel bag he carried. “Sorry,” he replied. “I must have left my suit jacket at camp.”

Wymack barked out a surprised laugh. “Alright, kid, whatever you say.”

They walked inside, and Wymack began discussing regulations and the things that were different with a hotshot crew, rather than just the firefighting program that Neil had done in prison. “So as you know, due to requirements,” his eyes went flinty and Neil took a half step away, “y’all are gonna be livin’ at the station. We’ve got a bunk all set up for you – you’ll be sharing, I hope you don’t mind – so you can head on over and set up, and then I’ll introduce you to the rest of the crew for dinner.”

They stopped in front of a door to a room, probably no bigger than the space Neil had resided in for the last five years. His mother would have beaten him black and blue to see him standing here with a bag and a name and a place to stay, but his mother wasn’t here.

“You good, kid?” Wymack asked.

“Yeah,” Neil replied. “Yeah, thanks.”

Wymack held a hand out. Neil stared at it for a moment, and then took it. Wymack smiled at him, and it was not the baring of teeth that Neil was accustomed to. “Good to have you,” the older man said, and Neil could almost imagine he meant it.

Wymack walked away, Neil watching him retreat down the halls. He opened the door and flicked on the light switch, and only years of conditioning kept him from jumping in the air when he realized there was someone already there, sitting on the opposite bunk.

“Ah,” the man said. “My new cellmate. How lovely.” The tone of his voice – flat and dismissive – conveyed quite the opposite.

Neil, after he had culled the urge to run like a bat out of hell, asked, “You are?”

The man smiled. This was not like Wymack’s smile. This was something predatorial, like the grins of bullies. It set Neil’s teeth on edge. “Your new cellmate.”

After a minute, Neil rolled his eyes and put his duffel down on the twin bed he’d been assigned. It had sheets and a pillow already, and there was a dresser in between his and the other man’s bed which had a thick black line drawn down the center, as if a possessive five-year-old had gotten ahold of a sharpie. With nothing better to do while he was assessed by the man, he unloaded his clothes quickly. Once upon a time he would not have been so free with his belongings, but that was before prison. That was before his father was killed, and his mother, too. That was before he was Neil Josten.

He took a deep breath, and then looked back at the man.

He was short, shorter even than Neil – not an easy feat – and his blond hair was feathery, poking straight up, the angriest part of him. His eyes were brown and unemotional, and he wore comically thick boots that were, possibly, trying to make up for something. His job shirt said _A. Minyard_ , and Neil remembered a list of names that he’d been shown, at some point or another.

“Andrew,” he said. “You’re not the paramedic.”

Andrew blinked at him, once, twice. The slowness of it might have been supposed to imply stupidity, but really Neil just felt slightly like a pinned butterfly. He shifted, and defiantly met Andrew’s eyes, which were resting on his face. He’d stopped being ashamed of his scars long ago. They were proof that he’d survived the things that were meant to kill him.

“Ding, ding, ding,” Andrew said. “Ten points to the probie. You will meet my twin brother in a few minutes, along with the rest of the busybodies.”

“You did inmate fire, I’m assuming?”

Andrew shrugged. “Maybe,” he said. He smiled again. “Who knows? Not you.”

Neil glared back. “And I’m sure you don’t know how to give a straight answer, either.”

Andrew laughed. “No. But rest assured I’m not going to shank you in your sleep, however amusing that would be. I have no interest in going back behind bars.”

Neil tilted his head at Andrew, at the armbands peeking out from under his sleeves. This was some kind of obscure test, he was fairly certain. “Ok,” he said. “Then I’m sure I don’t have to report you for having all those knives.”

Andrew’s expression flickered like a screen going dark, and then came back unemotional. If Neil didn’t already think he was just a bit cracked, he would have assumed that this was Andrew’s way of hiding his amusement. “You’re rather perceptive, aren’t you.”

Neil shrugged.

“Then understand this,” Andrew said. “I do not like you. I do not want to be here, in this room, with you, but I had no say. Step lightly.”

Neil replied, “You’re dramatic.”

Their unnerving stare-off was broken by a knock on the door.

“Minyard,” someone yelled through the door. “Stop breaking the newbie!”

“Our time is up,” Andrew said. “I trust you will politely keep this little chat to yourself.”

Neil didn’t answer; the door banged open, and a very tall man with dark skin and spiked hair and a wide smile stepped through.

“Hey,” the man said, and held out a hand, muscled and strong, which Neil shook carefully and then quickly let go. “What is it with all the new ones being so short?”

“Boyd,” Andrew said.

“Minyard,” Boyd – Matt, Neil thought, one of the career firefighters on this odd crew – replied genially. He swung that disarming smile towards Neil. “Hope you’re not turned off by the midget here. I promise we’re not all so mean.”

“I’m fine,” Neil said.

Matt blinked. “Ok-ay,” he responded. “Well, it’s dinner, so time to come out of your cave, Minyard. Sup wants to talk to us all, and Nicky made fajitas.”

Andrew glared at him, in as much as it seemed that Andrew always glared, so Matt motioned to the both of them and Neil obediently followed. The station was rather rabbit warren-ish, with various offices and other bunks and a command room with a large map, but Matt led them confidently towards the center, where Neil could hear plates clicking and people talking.

“Sup’s Wymack, in case you didn’t know,” Matt added cheerfully. “Well, technically Dan’s our superintendent, but Wymack’s here to keep an eye on all of us so we roll with it. And Seth, I’ll introduce him to you, he’s our captain, and Thea’s our squad boss. If you need anything, feel free to go to any of them, ok?”

Neil blinked, and tried not to feel overwhelmed. The presence of Andrew behind him was not reassuring.

Matt put a hand on his shoulder, and Neil didn’t flinch. “Don’t worry,” Matt said. “They’re all good people.”

“Debatable,” Andrew said.

Matt shot him a dirty look. “Shut up, Minyard.”

Neil heard what might have been a snicker, but then they were entering the kitchen, and the clamor died down as Wymack whistled for their attention and pointed. “Neil Josten.”

What followed was far more socialization than Neil had ever been comfortable with in his life, but he smiled tightly and sat down at the table. Matt introduced him to a seemingly unending list of people and their intricate personal lives, and on the other side of him Neil could see Andrew hiding a smirk. He wondered at that, but was quickly swept away by the other members of the crew coming up to greet him.

“So there’s Dan Wilds who works with National Parks, our superintendent,” Matt said, and pointed to a stocky black woman with short-cropped hair, who waved as she talked with Wymack. “She’s strict, but she’s the best.” Next he pointed out another man, with ochre skin and intricate tattoos and white teeth flashing in a smile. “That’s our captain, or assistant sup, Seth Gordon. He’s kind of a hardass when he’s grumpy, but he’ll whip you into shape like nobody else. He’s…Seth! What’s your other job?”

Seth walked over, sticking a fajita into his mouth and biting off almost half of it. Neil wasn’t sure if he was impressed or repulsed. “Forest Service,” Seth said once he was done chewing. He eyed Neil. “Newbie, eh? You think you can make it with us?”

Andrew sighed loudly. “Boring, Gordon.”

Seth looked at Andrew and raised his eyebrows. “Fuck off, Minyard.”

“They don’t dislike each other as much as they pretend to,” Matt confided to Neil. “Love-hate relationship.”

“Mostly just hate,” Andrew said, and Seth pointed at him with the other half of the fajita.

Matt rolled his eyes and turned back, pointing towards a fierce-looking woman with long black braids, and pastel makeup that stood out on her dark skin. “Anyway, then there’s Thea, our squad boss. She’s nice, but don’t underestimate her. She could probably bench press you and me at the same time.” The woman next to Thea was shorter, but no less muscled. Her hair was only slightly less red than Neil’s own, and when she looked up, she caught his gaze and smiled. “That’s Katelyn,” Matt said. “EMT and senior firefighter, but she’s deadly with a chainsaw.”

Neil nodded; women could be terrifying when handed blades. He cut off this train of thought in time to tune back in for Matt’s next introduction. Matt pointed at two tall men, both with short dark hair and intense expressions, but one pale where the other was bronze like Wymack. “Kevin Day and Jean Moreau,” he added. “They’re both assholes,” Andrew snorted quietly, “though they’re good at what they do. Moreau used to be wilderness search-and-rescue, but he’s here now with Day for reasons we don’t talk about. Moreau’s boyfriend is a smokejumper – ”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Jean said, with a French accent.

“And we don’t talk about that either,” Matt replied with a lopsided smile. He avoided the tomato Jean tossed at him, and then pointed out two other women. One was a tall, curly-haired blonde who would’ve most likely looked at home on a runway or in a private jet, but instead wore a _Cal Fire_ shirt and duty pants. She was sitting sideways on a bench and listening intently to a smaller and curvier woman with short hair dyed a shocking white, the ends dipped in rainbow. “Allison Reynolds and Renee Walker, respectively.”

“Both parts of the grand experiment,” Andrew said, and stole a handful of cheese from a bowl on the table.

“Man,” Seth said. “That’s so gross, what the hell.”

“Minyard means they both did inmate fire as well,” Matt told Neil, ignoring them.

Someone collapsed into a chair next to Andrew, and slid a plate towards him. This man smiled hugely at Neil, with warm skin and floppy brown curls, and said, “Nicky Hemmick. Nice to meet you, cutie. Hope Andrew didn’t scare you off.”

“Nicky is Andrew’s cousin,” Matt added.

“I’m sorry,” Andrew said, turning to Matt. “Do you know who this man is? I don’t know who this man is.”

Nicky rolled his eyes. The rest of the crew was joining the table too, and Neil spotted a quiet carbon copy of Andrew sitting himself down next to Jean and Kevin. Matt noticed where he was looking and said, “There’s our resident paramedic, Aaron.”

Aaron flipped him off.

“And…” Matt trailed off, scanning the room. “You’re not our only newbie, we got another girl just out on probation named Robin Cross.”

“She’s a kid,” Allison said from across the huge square table. “I don’t even know if she can _drink_.”

“Where is she?” Wymack asked, seating himself on the other side. “Did you lose her?”

“Nah,” Katelyn said, pulling out a chair and flopping down, digging into her bowl. “She’ll be out soon.”

There was a few minutes before a girl with dark hair and closed-off eyes crashed through a door, and pulled out the last chair between Dan and Thea. When she did, something unspoken was agreed upon, and the clamor began. The Foxhole crew ate loudly, as firefighters tended to, calling jokes and shouting at Katelyn for burning the rice. It was odd for Neil, but he put his head down, and eventually when Wymack finished eating and leaned back in his chair, everyone sat up straighter.

“Pack test tomorrow,” Wymack said.

Various half-hearted groans echoed around the table.

“Bets on the newbies surviving?” Allison asked, examining her nails.

"Wouldn’t have picked them if they wouldn’t,” Wymack said, but Seth was already putting down a five-dollar bill. He looked hard at Neil and Robin in equal turns. Neither of them met his gaze, and Neil simply shrugged and turned back to his food. The pack test, as they all called it, was the extreme fitness test that heralded the beginning of the season for hotshot crews. It was a combination of dozens of pull-ups, sit-ups, and push-ups, plus a three-mile hike with a forty-five pound pack in under forty-five minutes. Neil wasn’t really that worried, though, since he’d been training for months – it wasn’t like he’d had anything better to do.

Wymack took a drink, and then said gruffly, “We need good times. They’ll look for any cracks they can find to toss us.”

Neil blinked and glanced around, measuring them all up. The majority of the Foxes, as he’d heard them called, had the hard sets to their faces that Neil had come to equate with those who had no interest in what life wanted to throw at them – that they’d already faced all it had to offer.

“Good talk, crew,” Dan said, in the resounding silence. “Real optimistic.” She shifted into business mode, exchanging looks with Thea and Seth. “We want to do any training tonight?”

Thea shook her head. “We’ll find out how we work tomorrow.”

* * *

Neil’s night wasn’t exactly restful – he was too wary of Andrew, asleep in the other bunk – but he’d gotten through life by being able to sleep lightly. Matt was the one who found him in the morning and pulled him out to get breakfast, and Matt was the one he ended up following as the crew loaded onto two separate buses, both with sides emblazoned by the same words: _Foxhole Hotshots_.

“This is nice,” Neil said with some surprise, as he got yanked down into a seat next to the taller man.

Matt laughed. “We don’t do too bad for ourselves, no.”

Many hotshot crews operated out of a bunkhouse and lived together during the fire season, Neil knew, but the reality was that they also spent a lot of time on the road. During a normal year, they alternated between working from base camps at various fires for long days, and supposedly an even number of days in between back at their stations. But if there was one thing Neil had learned from starting firefighting in prison, it was that nothing could ever be counted on, not even off-time. He knew that this bus, designed specially for an interagency hotshot crew, would be their alternate home just as much as the Foxhole station.

“You a runner?” Matt asked as they started moving, gesturing down towards Neil’s ragged tennis shoes.

“I enjoy it,” Neil said. He didn’t say it was all he’d ever known.

The bus was loud as they moved onto the highway, and Neil sat, content to remain on the outside. Jokes and jabs were tossed back and forth at lightning speed, but very rarely was there one coherent conversation. Neil alternated between listening with one ear and nodding to Matt when it seemed like he should, and watching the mountains and forest that passed by out the window.

The hike was the first thing they did, and Neil spent the majority of the time observing the people he would be spending the better part of the next year with. They were not unfamiliar with each other, he could see, but they were split – Dan, Matt, Seth, Allison, and Renee formed one group, and Andrew, Aaron, Nicky, and Kevin formed the other. Yet Neil realized it wasn’t quite so black and white –Katelyn roved back and forth, and Thea and Dan did too. Andrew sometimes called jokes back to Renee, and neither Robin nor Jean spoke much at all.

But Neil quickly found they also moved too slowly for his taste. When he sped up and started moving ahead, it was, of all people, Robin Cross who caught up to him. He gave her a cursory sideways-glance, but she kept her eyes on the ground. For a few minutes the laughs of the rest of the Foxes faded behind them, and their feet pounding against the ground in a quick run-walk was the only noise to be heard.

“They’re too loud,” Robin said, voice breaking the lull that Neil had settled into.

He shook his head and stepped over a root. “Yeah,” he said. “I get it.”

Robin didn’t say anything else for the next ten minutes, but birdsong echoed overhead and Neil didn’t feel wary around her. He wondered if it was because she was smaller than him, or if it was because she had the same haunted look in her eyes that he’d had, once upon a time. Then he shook his head – that was too close to comfort, to think about the past he’d left behind along with Nathaniel Wesninski. He sped up, and Robin easily matched his pace.

The two of them were the first to finish, in around thirty six minutes, and Wymack gave them both an appraising look when they arrived. The rest of the crew was soon to follow, sweating and laughing together, nudging each other and Seth when they saw Robin and Neil waiting for them by the side of the bus.

“You’re quick for such small little shits,” Seth said to them, grudgingly impressed.

Neil blinked at him. Robin seemed similarly unsure as to whether or not this was a compliment. “Thanks,” Neil settled on.

The rest of the morning Robin hung around Neil, the two of them allied in being, while not new to firefighting, new at least to being hotshots. Neil didn’t really like interacting with people he didn’t know – this had originated in his childhood on the run, and had been further driven home during his stint in prison. But Robin was silent and unobtrusive, and Neil didn’t mind doing pull-ups and push-ups next to her if it meant he didn’t have to talk to anyone. If it meant, then, that he didn’t have to think about what his mother would say. Or rather, what she would ask. _Why are you here, Abram_?

They stopped back at their station around noon for a light lunch. Neil, who hadn’t spoken out loud for at least two hours and was feeling pretty comfortable with this, was surprised when Thea slid into a chair between him and Robin with her plate.

“Cross, Josten,” she greeted.

Neil glanced at her in his peripheral vision.

“You can call me boss lady,” Thea said, mouth twisting wryly. “It’s what everyone else does.”

At the other end of the table, Matt and Seth high-fived and called out an inside joke. Nicky snickered, and even Jean and Kevin had faint smiles on their faces.

“Don’t scare them, Theodora,” Andrew said, setting his plate down directly across from them. In a tank top and shorts, Neil could see now that the black armbands he wore went up to his elbows, and the arms underneath them that were muscled and surprisingly pale for the fact that they lived in California. Neil looked away.

“If anybody’s scaring them,” Katelyn said, ever-present with Thea, “it’s you, Minyard.”

Andrew bared his teeth at her in an approximation of a smile; Katelyn’s returning grin was savage and mocking.

“Ignore them,” Dan said. “They’re just having their dick-measuring contest, as usual.”

The paramedic twin, Aaron, put his head in his hands. Jean patted him on the shoulder.

“Well,” Katelyn said cheerfully. “We all know who will win that one.”

“You?” Neil asked, surprising both himself and everyone else by speaking up. There was a heartbeat of silence before the table exploded into laughter.

“I like this one,” Katelyn said. “I’m keeping him.”

“Does Aaron need to be jealous?” Allison asked.

This led to yet more laughter. Thea explained to Neil and Robin, “Kate and Aaron are engaged.”

Robin frowned. “Is that allowed?”

Thea shrugged. “They know what their priorities are. You’re going to find that there’s a lot of things about our crew that are…out of the ordinary.”

The afternoon proved Thea right, as the last of their fitness test saw them spending an afternoon cutting line. This was one of two prevention methods that hotshot crews spent a majority of their time doing when controlling fires – prescribed burns were one, and line construction the other. Lines were cut out of the forest by removing burnable material (leaves, trees, and underbrush) so that when the fire reached the line, it had no fuel to burn and nowhere to go. It was hard, backbreaking work, even when they were just practicing in the middle of nowhere under the midafternoon sun.

Neil found, however, that he didn’t really mind it. He’d been through worse, and inmate firefighting had only served to reinforce the message that discomfort was something you didn’t advertise. The uniform of the yellow shirt, green pants, and yellow hardhat for which hotshot crews were known was heavy and hot, but he could easily fall into the rhythm of the chainsaws and the Pulaski axes, of clearing brush and pulling out tree stumps. The Foxes worked well together, hesitant around Robin and Neil but welcoming when they split off into separate groups, and both Dan and Seth seemed pleased.

At the end of the day, when Thea brought them to a halt, the crew gathered together and left an open spot in their circle for Robin and Neil, sweat dripping off all their foreheads. Dan gave them the rundown, Wymack stepping back and watching, and then they hiked up to the top of the ridge to watch the sunset. It was a clear California sunset, the world awash with purple and pink, and the Foxes stood in a rough approximation of a line, their shirts tied around their waists.

Dan put her arms across Neil and Robin’s shoulders, which only worked because they were short. She said, “You two will do.”

* * *

In the quiet mid-May week which followed the pack test, the weather grew even worse, with high temps, low humidity, and too much wind for anyone’s comfort. The heads of the Foxhole Hotshots didn’t talk much to Neil, not yet. But bad news was news to be shared, and everyone knew – it was shaping up to be the worst season any of them had seen yet.

“Back in my day,” Wymack said, “a big fire was thirty thousand acres.” He shook his head. “Now your sorry asses are gonna be out dealing with at least two hundred thousand.”

“Don’t worry, old man,” Seth joked, standing and clapping their sup on the back. “We’ll enjoy it.”

“I ain’t _that_ old,” Wymack called at his retreating back.

“Old enough,” Andrew said, and Wymack tossed a paper towel roll at his head.

Neil could start to see the Foxhole Hotshots, in the kitchen, in the watch office, as they moved their lives into the station. Hotshot crews, despite being everyday people and firefighters, were also some of the more elite forces that the Forest Service had to offer. And this one, even with former inmates and a group that came from so many different walks of life, was no different. In another world, there would have been conflict between them – most of them were assholes in one way or another, and very few of them truly liked each other. But there was camaraderie and inside jokes, and more than anything there was trust. That, Neil thought, was what would take the most getting used to.

He didn’t know what it said about him, that he didn’t know if he could do that. No, he thought – he could keep himself alive, and he was certain he could keep others alive; indeed he would do his best, since already these people were growing on him. But the question of trusting them was an entirely different story. Robin’s eyes were still closed, Seth still wary, and Andrew still blank. Neil wasn’t so great at trusting people, and he had good reason for it. In his experience, trusting people got you killed.

Here, trust was what kept you alive.

They got sent out on their first roll in late May. They left early in the morning, just before dawn, the two buses packed and pulling away just as the sun lit on the clearing that their station was set in.

Seth caught Neil watching through the windows. “Get a good long look,” he said. “It’ll be awhile before we’re back.”

Neil responded, albeit hesitantly, “Our assignment is only for two weeks.” 

Allison laughed. “It’ll feel like a lot longer.”

“In a good way,” Dan added. She grinned over at Neil, eager to go, eager to be out there.

Seth nodded, only a little grudging. “In a good way.”

The drive wasn’t as long as it could have been, and it wasn’t even lunchtime when they arrived. Their base camp was a bustling area, with communication lines set up and various crews established. The Foxhole Hotshots got to work unpacking and forming their own camp – this was where they would operate out of for the next two weeks, when they weren’t spiked out, camping in the field. The rhythm wasn’t that different from the way they’d been acting back at their station, which was to say that the Foxes had their well-worn lines of companionship, and Robin and Neil both stood to the side. They jostled each other, pulling on packs that contained everything they would need to survive, then slinging tools over their shoulders – chainsaws for some of them (Katelyn bumped Aaron’s shoulder with a rakish grin, and Nicky pretended to gag) and handtools for others, like axes or shovels.

Neil had gotten used to quick turnarounds, what with the suddenness that inmate firefighting occasionally had. He’d learned to go where he was directed, when he was directed. But this was a different kind of toughness, the looks on the rest of the crew’s faces as they loaded up their gear. It wasn’t grim, or determined; they knew what they were heading for, and they were ready for it.

They were _excited_ for it.

He wondered, briefly, why he was here. This was everything he’d sworn never to do. He didn’t love fire, not like these people did, and he didn’t love the land, not like they did. But he glanced around and saw them all talking and laughing, and him on the outside, and he thought, _that_. They were all pretty asshole-ish people. But for some reason all of them, even Andrew-Minyard-his-maybe-psycho-roommate, wanted to be here. Wanted to do this together. Wanted to be part of this family.

Neil wanted _that_ with a bone-deep ache, so much it hurt.

As they waited for transportation, Neil could feel Wymack’s eyes boring into him, and Robin stiff next to him. They were the unknowns in this. They were the parts of this that could go wrong.

“He doesn’t come with us?” Robin asked Renee in an undertone.

“In a normal crew, maybe,” Renee explained. “But our crew is different.”

“Our crew is special,” Aaron muttered, barely audible, and both Jean and Kevin snorted in unison.

“Yes,” Renee said patiently. “He’s more of an overseer, to make sure that we’re all coexisting peacefully, and that we’re doing our jobs well. It’s part of the agreement with the Forest Service in allowing us to operate as an interagency hotshot crew, despite the backgrounds of some of our members.”

“Right,” Robin agreed, in a tone that meant she thought that was stupid.

“Cut him some slack,” Dan called back. “We’re not an easy bunch.”

They got on the UTVs they were instructed to, and the road rumbled by underfoot. The fire loomed in their peripheral vision, pillars of smoke that got bigger as the minutes stretched out. Neil felt the weight of someone watching him. He glanced up – it was Andrew, hardhat in his lap, cornsilk blond hair mussed. They hadn’t interacted much, lately, even despite sharing a room. Sometimes, Neil woke up and found Andrew watching him, or Andrew gone entirely. Neil was fairly certain that Andrew knew that the second night of them sharing a room back at the station, Neil had swiped one of Andrew’s knives and stuffed it under his mattress. He raised an eyebrow at Neil in some sort of silent challenge.

Neil straightened his back and turned away.

* * *

Neil would look back on those first few days someday and laugh. They were hellish. That was the only word for it. Neil had worked in fires before, sure, but not even that could have really prepared him for working as a hotshot – hiking miles back and forth, hours spent in the hottest parts of the blaze. He ate lunch whenever he could and started to feel like his axe was an extension of his hand, yanking stumps out of the ground. When they got back to base camp at night, Neil was happier to collapse into his sleeping bag than he would have been in a king-sized bed, he was that tired. Of course on the positive side of things, he didn’t think about his mother or his past at all, since he was consumed by exhaustion.

He didn’t talk to anyone much in the beginning, either. He hiked with Robin and went where he was directed, but he was still leery of them. It was Allison who ended up cornering him, but it was Dan and Katelyn who were watching when she did.

“Come on, newbie,” Allison said. There wasn’t makeup on her face, just sweat and soot and ferocity. “If you won’t talk to us, why are you here?”

So Neil ended up sitting next to Kevin at dinner time. Neil hadn’t really interacted with Kevin, and he was pretty sure he vaguely remembered Kevin’s face from something which might or might not have to do with his past, so he’d been staying pretty far away. Of course, seeing as they were eating MREs in the middle of a California wildfire, there were more pressing issues. He sat down next to Kevin.

Kevin shifted and looked at him awkwardly, which was kind of funny in the same way that feral raccoons were. “So,” Kevin finally said. “You like soccer.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Andrew and Aaron said at the same time, and then looked at each other like they couldn’t believe the other had the nerve to be alive.

Neil turned warily to Kevin. “Yes,” he finally replied. “Football.”

“Oh, thank God,” Kevin said, with all the relief of a man who didn’t believe in God but was entirely open to small miracles. “Someone with _sense_.”

After the first five days, Neil settled into a rhythm. Somehow he found himself arguing with Kevin or even Aaron, exchanging passive aggressive remarks in that strange back-and-forth with Andrew, laughing when he didn’t expect it about something Allison or Thea said. Maybe he was getting used to them, but more than that he was getting used to the fire.

Neil didn’t love the fire. He didn’t exactly think it was beautiful, nor did he think the destruction particularly poetic. But there was something simple about it – about the way it changed the landscape so drastically, so much that he thought that he wouldn’t be able to see forests again without seeing this, without seeing how burned everything was, without seeing the colors the fires charred out of the ground. How in the mornings, when they hiked through a recently-burned area, the smoke and the sky were white and the trees loomed like ghosts. It was, he thought, what being on another planet might be. That same kind of strangeness. Strange and unfamiliar, just like it was strange and unfamiliar when one of the Foxes yelled, “Josten!” down the line.

Unfamiliar, but not, he thought, bad.

* * *

A week in, they got radioed by Wymack to stay out on the front line. Everyone groaned, but no one complained. In fact, they seemed exhilarated by it. Neil thought, for not the first time and not the last, that all these people were insane. Being spiked out like this meant that they spent even more time working, preparing some indirect lines for the fire to come to by clearing out dead trees, and other times watching parts of a fire for hours on end, creating lines and digging down to the mineral soil to choke the fire.

Neil would have thought, being out on the edge of a full-blown wildfire and camping far away from everything except the trucks that brought them their dinners, that the nightly routines of the Foxes would change. He didn’t know why he thought that, since they didn’t really – they were hotshots, they were the best of the best, and they were out here bedding down at night with poison oak rashes and playing poker between their sleeping bags with small rocks.

“You’re enjoying yourself?” Kevin asked, a few days into the Foxes being spiked out on the line.

They stood on an abandoned road, holding and watching the fire carefully as another crew lit the upper side of the hill. Embers or sparks or anything burning could let the fire jump the road, and that, Neil knew, could be catastrophic.

“Yes,” Neil told him.

Evidently it surprised Kevin, though he hid that quickly. “Good,” he said. “You should. It’s beautiful.”

Neil glanced up at the partially-obscured sky, at the towering pines in front of him and the raw heat of the fire coming off them.

“You’ll love it,” Kevin finally added, eyes still intent and straight-forward. “It’s ok if you don’t right now, but you will. I didn’t think I would, until my dad showed me what this can be.”

“Yeah,” Neil found himself agreeing.

“It’s family,” Kevin said intensely.

 _I hope so_ , Neil didn’t say.

Of course, it was the next night that everything kind of went to shit.

“Ok,” Dan said. “You all know what we’re doing. Main fire headed our way, and we’re gonna use the roads and ‘dozer lines to contain it, but we need to strengthen those. Time to move. Sorry if you thought we were gonna have dinner any time soon, but this is what we got.”

Somehow, Neil ended up in front of Andrew.

“Ready for your trial by fire?” Andrew asked, and then laughed his odd snorting-cackle.

“You’re not as funny as you think you are,” Neil told him. He followed closely behind Renee, keeping an eye on her white hair underneath her yellow hardhat. It would be getting dark soon.

“I’m exactly as funny as I think I am,” Andrew corrected, “Which is to say, not at all.”

Neil had met a lot of weird people in his time, but Andrew Minyard, he thought, definitely took the cake.

“You’re with us today,” Andrew said. “Let’s get going.”

Night set in, and they met up with another crew. They spread out along the edges of the fire, cutting line and burning some parts. Neil didn’t look up much from what he was doing other than when he was called to move out of the way for one of the sawyers like Katelyn, but whenever he did the fire took up his entire attention. The sky so black above, the ground lit with a yellowish haze, the bright fire spreading across the ground and some of the trees. As they moved further into the fire to burn patches of the grass in the hopes that they wouldn’t burn worse the next day, Katelyn acting as firing boss, the Foxes were illuminated, headlamps bright and shoulders weary.

Maybe it was the weariness that led to what happened. Maybe it was the lack of communication, or not so much the lack as the disconnect. Either way, when the wind shifted direction suddenly, Neil was on the wrong side of it, and when Katelyn barked something, he jerked and tore a blister on his hand open. He looked up, the fire searing itself on the back of his eyelids, flaring and crackling. He couldn’t see the road, couldn’t see the rest of their crew through the flickering heat and raging flames.

“Fuck,” he heard Nicky say, then repeat it again more desperately, but it was barely audible over the sudden noise of the fire. 

“Josten,” Kevin said, and yanked Neil towards him. Neil went stiff in his arms, and then realized that there was a tree that hadn’t been cut, weakened and burning now as the main fire raced towards them.

“Thanks for that,” he said, a little surprised. Kevin shook his head, giving him a bit of a weird look.

“This was a bad idea,” Jean said.

“I know, Jean,” Katelyn replied sharply. “Finish _up_ , we’re going to have to find our way back to the road.”

Neil glanced around furiously. Their escape route had been cut off by the tree, engulfed in flame, but there was another path out if they were careful. He said, first quietly and then louder, “Katelyn. There.”

“Out,” Katelyn ordered the four of them. “You lead, Josten. You know what you’re looking for. The engine support is just up the road, this is getting too close.”

None of them were visibly shaken when they reached the road, but evidently it had been noticed that they’d disappeared into the fire because the rest of the Foxes moved towards them quickly. There wasn’t much adrenaline sitting in Neil’s stomach – or probably there was, and the years of his life spent running had just taught him how to deal with it – but the situation as a whole had still been reckless, and definitely dangerous.

“Hey,” Nicky was saying to his cousins, maybe kind of shaken but still with that warm tone. “Hey, I’m ok.”

Dan had a storm sitting in her eyebrows, and Seth was aggressively flicking ash off of Jean and Kevin’s faces like they’d personally offended him. Aaron held Katelyn tightly for a minute, and Andrew was standing close to Nicky and his twin, impassive. Renee spoke something to him quietly, but his gaze didn’t leave the group.

“Neil,” Matt asked, anxiety coloring his voice. “Man, you good?”

Neil turned to him. “Yeah,” he said, blinking a few times. The air on the road was cleaner than the air in the fire, and he took a gasping breath, clean in his lungs. He said again, “Yeah.”

“Ok,” Matt replied after a minute. “I’ll be right back, ok?” He jogged towards Allison and Thea, who were gesturing with the head of the engine crew.

Robin wordlessly offered Neil a water bottle. He wasn’t sure where she’d been hoarding it, since the last time they’d stopped had been four hours ago, but he took it anyway. “Thank you.”

“That seemed far less purposeful than Katelyn is making it out to be,” came Andrew’s voice. “Did you perhaps make a mistake, Josten?”

Neil gave Andrew a blank look.

Andrew gave an overemphasized sigh, which made Robin snort quietly. Then he said, “I owe you, it appears.”

Neil turned and looked fully at Andrew. His face dirty and grimy – they’d been working for twelve or more hours straight – but his eyes gleaming brightly under pale eyebrows. As opposed to his usual apathy, there was a grudging twist to his mouth. Neil realized, quite suddenly, something very intrinsic about Andrew Minyard and his relationship with the rest of the Foxes. “Wait,” he said.

“I will not,” Andrew replied.

Neil pointed towards Nicky, towards Aaron, towards Kevin and Jean and Renee and even Katelyn. “You protect them.”

Andrew’s shoulders went up and down in another sigh. His face didn’t change. “I hate them.”

“Yeah, but,” Neil paused. “They’re your family.”

Andrew’s expression probably said something along the lines of, _no fucking shit_.

“Well, I need things spelled out for me,” Neil said. But his mouth quirked all on its own, because he’d figured Andrew out. It was easier to be around people, Neil had learned over the years, when you knew what they wanted. And now he did – Andrew wanted to protect these people. He might not like them all the time (that much was obvious) but he would protect them, and they loved him for it.

Neil wondered what that kind of belonging would feel like.

“You don’t owe me,” he said. “They’re,” he wasn’t sure what the Foxes were – friends, he hoped, “they’re my people as well as yours.” That felt right. It felt right, and it didn’t matter what his mother would have thought. She was dead, wasn’t she. She didn’t matter anymore.

Andrew’s expression didn’t really change, though one of his eyes twitched. His eyebrows shone pale under the soot on his cheeks, on his hardhat.

“Do you guys ever talk like normal people?” Robin asked.

“Shut up, midget,” Andrew told her.

* * *

The first day back from that fire, Neil was woken by someone banging on the door.

“Rise and shine, sunshines,” Katelyn shouted through the door. “We’re going running!”

“Fuck off,” Andrew said.

“I’m gonna kill her,” Neil mumbled into his pillow, before rolling himself out of bed and into a standing position. He hesitated for a moment, a little shaky on his feet.

“Sore?” Andrew asked.

“I can still leave you in the dust,” Neil told him, and then disappeared into the bathroom to change.

The run was long, though the morning was pretty – clear blue skies and golden grasses waving, the winding mountain road stretched out in front of them. Since Kevin had taken the football conversation to mean that he and Neil were now friends, he got drawn into a discussion with Andrew’s group regarding bets. As far as Neil could tell, the Foxes bet on everything, and each other’s relationships were no different.

“Seth and Allison?” Robin asked, sounding confused. She sounded confused a lot. “I thought Allison was with Renee.”

“No, no,” Aaron said. “Jean and I think it’s a love triangle.”

"Bullshit,” Nicky declared, and leapt over a tree branch in the road. “I think they’re all together, and they just don’t want to tell us. And if they _do_ – ”

Neil sped up, pulling ahead of them and pushing himself faster. Surprisingly (or maybe unsurprisingly) Andrew caught up with him.

“Why do you want to be here if you don’t want to trust anyone?” Andrew asked, jogging next to him. He didn’t even look out of breath, just bored. Neil’s eyes tracked a bead of sweat as it slid down his cheek and then skittered away, towards the early morning sunshine.

Neil retaliated with, “Why do you keep talking to me if you don’t like me?”

Andrew was quiet, their feet pounding against the sidewalk. “You might be dangerous, if you try.”

Neil frowned. “Well, I’m not.” Not anymore, he wasn’t. Well, he tried not to be. That was what mattered, right?

Andrew didn’t say anything. Then, “You’re more interesting than the rest of them.” His face reset to that displeased blankness, the look which was becoming so familiar to Neil. “Never fear, I’m sure the novelty will wear off quickly.”

It took Neil a moment to realize this was an answer to the question he’d asked, albeit wrapped up in Andrew’s signature scorn. In return he offered, “I’m trying to trust. I think I’m getting there.”

Andrew seemed to notice that they were playing this game. His next response was a huff and a, “You are a flighty creature, Josten, and I hate you.”

Neil could feel a smile kicking around his lips without his permission. “You just said I was interesting.”

“Hatred and fascination can go hand-in-hand.”

Neil said, “Not for long.”

“Incorrigible.”

“Do you want points for good word choice?”

Renee was catching up to them, probably on a mission from Thea or Dan to make sure Andrew didn’t trip Neil off a ravine, which was funny enough. It’d been a while since he’d been the lesser of two evils. It was funny, then, that Neil wasn’t sure he minded being normal for a minute.

“Let’s talk then,” Andrew said. “Prove me wrong.”

Neil skipped a step and replied, “Ok.”

He wasn’t sure why he said that either.

* * *

The Foxes ran or hiked everyday, and spent time doing physical training as well. They kept eyes on most of the California fires, especially the one they’d recently been assigned to, and it was only a few days later that Andrew found Neil in the lounge area adjacent to the kitchen, watching quietly from the back as Matt, Jean, and Allison played some sort of driving game. Seth was adding colorful commentary while Renee helped him with work, and there was a crashing noise from the kitchen which was most of the reason Neil had fled to the lounge.

"Wonderboy,” Andrew acknowledged. He sat down on the couch next to Neil and put his feet up on the back of Jean’s chair, who shot a glare over his shoulder before quickly turning back to the game.

“No,” Neil replied.

“I owe you, it appears.”

“I already told you that you don’t.”

“Does it look like I care what you say?”

Neil thought about this. “Very much so, yes.”

Andrew’s face twitched again, and if Neil knew him better he might almost say that Andrew was amused. The sun caught in his hair, light and flaxen fair. He ruined the startling softness of the tableau by opening his mouth. “I don’t like owing people.”

Neil started to reply, then stopped. Debts and repayments weren’t an unfamiliar system to him. “Quit watching me while I sleep.”

Jean, in front of them, said, “What?” He was ignored.

Andrew tilted his head slightly. “I don’t watch you while you sleep.”

“Then try trusting me, or something.”

“Hypocrite. I will trust you when you trust us.”

Neil opened his mouth, before stopping. “Ok, that’s fair.” Then, “Why are you here? You don’t seem to like people all that much.”

“Understatement of the year,” Allison said from her seat in front of them. “Ha – take _that_ , Boyd!”

Andrew blinked at Neil carefully, analyzing something, though Neil wasn’t entirely sure what. “Is this what we are doing? Honesty?”

Neil shrugged. “Sure.”

“Then you already know the answer.”

“Huh,” Neil replied. He thought about that, thought about the naked relief in Andrew’s voice after that night out on the first roll. He said, “Cool.”

“Cool,” Andrew echoed, maybe mocking, but Neil was already standing up, moving towards the kitchen. He hoped it threw Andrew off.

“Neil,” Dan said in the kitchen. She smiled at him, like she wanted him to be there. Maybe she did. Neil would take what he could get. “Minyard,” she said, less pleasantly but also less hesitantly.

In return, Andrew gave her a lazy salute. “Oh captain, my captain.”

Neil was pretty sure the rest of the Foxes would find Andrew funnier if he didn’t deadpan every single line, but to each their own. Then, he figured, that wasn’t quite true – the rest of the crew revolved around Andrew like they were used to his oddities. Probably, they were. After all, they were already adapting to Neil himself, just as he was getting used to them. It was strange to think about, after a lifetime on the run, that he would leave a mark someplace if he was gone. That he was, actively, leaving a mark.

“Hey, Josten,” Thea said. “You alive in there?”

“Yeah,” Neil replied instantly. He frowned – he did that too. It’d barely been a month, and he was already relaxing around them all.

“Over or under fifty?” Thea asked Neil, evidently part of some conversation he hadn’t been listening to.

“What?”

“Seth and Renee and Allison.”

Neil furrowed his eyebrows at her. Across the kitchen, Nicky spun Kevin in a circle to some song at the table while Dan laughed and Wymack tried his hardest to do paperwork. Andrew hip-checked his twin’s chair, and Aaron glanced up from his laptop with a frown that was all bark and no bite. Neil blinked, and turned back to Thea and Katelyn and Robin. “What about them?”

“Their relationship,” Katelyn said.

“They’re betting on it,” Robin said, with slightly less enthusiasm. Neil honestly wondered why she was here, but then thought about her eyes. He knew why she was here, didn’t he.

Thea shrugged. “Taking bets on Gordon and the wondergirls is what we do.”

Katelyn nodded. She sipped from her water bottle.

“Is everyone on this crew dating each other?” Robin asked, vaguely accusatory but probably confused.

Katelyn laughed, throwing her head back. Across the table, Aaron’s eyes caught on her. Katelyn said, “Who else would we talk to?”

Thea shrugged when Robin looked to her. “She’s not wrong.” She sat forward, putting her hands on her knees. “You’re gonna realize that, both of you. Either you fit with us, or you don’t. There’s no room for anything else, not with how much time we spend around each other.”

Katelyn snorted. “Even if you don’t fit with us, you might be surprised. Fighting fires like these is just something that brings people together, I think.”

Neil wondered what Andrew would have been like if he didn’t have this. Neil wondered what _he_ would have been like, if he’d never stopped running, if he’d never turned his father in, if he’d never gone to prison. If he’d never realized there were other paths open to him than the ones he was offered, and that one of them could put him here, surrounded by people braver than him who somehow wanted to be his friend anyway.

“Nicky thinks they’re all dating each other and just trying to be subtle about it,” Neil said.

Thea blinked, startled, and then snorted. “Well _if_ Hemmick is right, then they’re doing a shit job of it.”

“I think it’s sweet,” Katelyn said. “They’re all good for each other.”

Robin was peering at the trio in question past the table, through the open doorway into the lounge. Allison was reclining, staring intently at the screen. Without looking away, she popped Seth in the back of the head. He threw back his head and laughed, and Renee smiled, tucking her head over his shoulder and reaching forward to play with Allison’s hair.

“Huh.” Robin said. Then, “I can’t unsee it.”

Katelyn cackled, and Thea’s own quiet laugh rolled out. Even Robin was cracking a smile, the darkness in her eyes receding as she brushed her hair back from her face. Neil breathed in through a tightness in his chest that might have been – no, _was_ fondness.

Across the kitchen, Andrew raised a single cornsilk-pale eyebrow at him. In return, Neil rolled his eyes.

* * *

Their second roll started out not unlike their first – early morning wake-up, pack the buses, a several hour drive. They were briefed at base camp (smaller than the one at the first, the Breckenridge fire) and sent out, but with a much less exciting day than some of their previous ones. As they hiked back in the evening, the setting sun caught over the mountains, turning the sky blue and the few clouds golden.

Neil put away his gear for the night, into the compartments on the bus, and slipped through the rigs and away through the field, finding the rocky stream that traversed the wide area. He dipped his fingers in and ran it through his hair, trying to clean out the grime that was already there. He stared down into the shallow water for a moment, caught by the scars that were obviously visible on his face. It was easy to forget they were there now, since the only people he ever interacted with were the Foxes and none of them reacted, but there they remained. He lifted fingers and traced the ones on his cheekbones. The Foxes never, ever reacted.

He could already hear what his mother would have said: _don’t get attached. You’ll just have to leave them behind, anyway._

“Yeah, well,” he said to her memory. “You’re dead.”

“Planning to run away?”

It was Andrew, because of course it was Andrew.

“Why don’t you trust people?” Neil asked him. It was kind of a rhetorical question.

“Why don’t _you_ trust people?” Andrew returned. It was less of a rhetorical question.

Neil said, “I don’t have good experience with trusting people.”

“I see,” Andrew said. He looked vaguely like he’d been expecting this answer, but he gestured and began walking away anyway. When Neil didn’t follow, Andrew turned back. He was a very short man in yellow, haloed by the sun against the California mountains. He said, impatiently, “Come on, the busybodies will think I’ve pushed you in the water and drowned you.”

“Why would they think that?” Neil asked, with genuine curiosity. In light of Andrew’s recent decisions, the idea was not completely implausible, but would still be surprising. “You’re not that scary.”

“And you’re insufferable,” Andrew replied. “No running out on us, Josten, not now.”

“I don’t plan on it,” Neil said, with far more honesty than he’d meant to. Andrew looked back at him, and something cracked through the walls behind his eyes; he’d caught that Neil was being truthful.

Neil shifted his gaze towards the ground, following Andrew’s black work boots. He didn’t think he planned to leave, anyway. He thought, really, that he’d be kind of an idiot if he did. Plus, he figured as he picked his way back towards the Foxes’ setup, he was tired of running.

“There’s Neil and Andrew,” Nicky called as he entered the clearing. “Come join us!”

They were gathered in a circle, just tee-shirts and pants and their hardhats. Why they needed their hardhats, Neil wasn’t sure, but he slipped into an empty spot anyway. It wasn’t the whole crew, just half, but the rest were watching, or laughing, or cooking. (Or in Wymack’s case, looking concerned, which was the norm.)

“What are we doing?” Neil asked.

Robin, next to him, looked to Andrew and Neil and shrugged desperately.

“It’s called ninja,” Matt said. He swung for Aaron’s arm and promptly fell over.

“Nice one,” Dan mocked from across their campsite, where she was helping Seth with whatever counted as cooking for tonight.

“Your turn, boss lady,” Nicky said to Thea, who set her face sternly and then lunged towards Andrew.

“Too slow,” Andrew replied with what might have been a little bit of spite, moving out of her way smoothly. In the next second he was spinning towards Neil, but Neil had a decade’s worth of reflexes in not getting hit, and he moved away instinctively.

Everyone quieted for a second, before Allison declared, “It appears Minyard has finally met his match.”

Andrew didn’t say anything though, just raised his eyebrows at Neil. “Your turn, Josten.”

Neil got the feeling he wasn’t just talking about the game.

They spent the entirety of the next three days prepping a ridgeline. It wasn’t easy – digging line for hours straight in the sun, stepping back on the smokier day to devour a protein bar as Katelyn and Thea cut into huge trees – but Neil knew what to expect, now, and in the days that followed it too. When they worked late hours, he knew that Dan and Seth and Thea would make sure they still stopped long enough to eat. When tensions ran short and Aaron snapped at Allison or Andrew at Katelyn, or even when Seth and Kevin argued like they were going to hit each other, Neil knew, startlingly, that it didn’t come from hatred.

That was strange, wasn’t it. The harsh wilderness, and the fact that sometimes anger came not from a lack of love, but rather from a wealth of it.

A distracted Thea shoved a thermos of coffee into Neil’s hands as he stood watching the sun rise. She tossed a, “Yours, Josten, sorry there’s no tea today,” over her shoulder before striding towards Wymack and Dan.

He blinked at her retreating back and tried not to drop the thermos on the ground.

“For God’s sake,” Aaron said. “Would you stop looking like we’ve personally offended you every time we learn something new about you.”

Nicky, tired beyond words, told him, “Be nice.”

“Well he’s not wrong,” Jean pointed out.

“Ok, your opinion doesn’t matter,” Neil said, finding his voice. “You’re _French_.”

Kevin snorted at this, and Jean rolled his eyes, but both of them were also smiling in their vaguely disorienting way, and Neil had a feeling it was because of him.

“Brits,” Jean said.

“You guys are so _weird_ ,” Nicky said fondly.

Before they got taken out to the line, Andrew turned to Neil, holding his gear over his shoulder. The lines of his face were all golden under his hardhat, the rays of early-morning sun lighting them from the side. “Talk to Renee later, Josten. Maybe it’s time for you to stop acting like a dog waiting to be hit.”

“You’re an asshole,” Neil told him. “You’re really just an asshole.”

Andrew climbed into the UTV and squeezed next to Kevin, and laughed.

That day the fire behaved itself, as Matt jokingly told Neil at lunch, and even in the smoky woods, nothing went too far out of control. They spent the day cutting line, and then working to clear debris so that the fire wouldn’t be able to jump the road. Neil could see that both Seth and Kevin took vindictive pleasure from ordering one of the city engine crews around, but he didn’t fault them for it. Structure fires, Neil thought, were a far cry from what hotshot crews did. When he said this aloud, Allison clapped him on the shoulder.

“One of us,” Matt and Nicky chanted, and then cut off with a yelp as they almost impaled themselves on a low-hanging branch.

All in all, Neil thought it was a successful day.

He helped cook dinner that night, too, and listened as someone got Robin to talk about goalkeeping for her high school soccer team. It was during this stretch of time that Neil could feel eyes on him; when he looked up, he found Andrew watching, and he remembered what the blond had said.

“Andrew thinks I should talk to you,” Neil told Renee, and then almost instantly ran into the roadblock of having no clue what else to say.

Renee opened her mouth to speak, then paused. She frowned and put a forkful of rice in her mouth. Neil wondered how she managed to keep her hair so clean when they were out in the fire for long days like this – it wasn’t white and pastel like it was when they had access to daily showers, but it wasn’t sooty and ash-covered either.

“What did he tell you to talk to me about?” Renee finally asked.

Neil thought back to Andrew’s exact phrasing, and figured it probably wasn’t what angelic Renee wanted to hear. He said, “Your past. Well, and my past.”

“I see,” Renee replied. She frowned again, and her gaze caught across the clearing on Allison and Seth, like it did frequently. “Neil, you don’t need to tell me about your trauma, no matter what Andrew said. And I don’t need to tell you mine. Here, it doesn’t matter. You get a second chance, Neil.” She smiled at him, softly. “You deserve one.”

Neil shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah, ok.”

Renee nodded, and they sat in silence for a minute or two.

“Are you with Allison and Seth?” Neil asked. He wasn’t quite sure why he asked; it wasn’t that he was trying to invade her privacy, because he didn’t really care that much. He wasn’t sure why he asked. But there was something about their smiles, and it was the same sort of smile Renee was giving him now.

“We make each other happy,” she said. “Isn’t that what matters?”

Neil picked at a fray along his shirt. He said, “I think so.”

“Good,” Renee replied. Her smile turned less sweet, more sharp. “If you hold off on telling the rest of them for a few weeks or so, I’m sure Allison would be willing to split some of the money with you.” Neil must have made a face, because Renee laughed. “Alli likes to play the system.”

“Alright,” Neil said. “Deal.”

The word-choice must have caught Renee’s attention, because she said after a moment, “You know when Andrew makes his deals that they are just his way of,” she paused, thinking. “Of always knowing where he stands with others.”

“Yeah,” Neil replied. “I think I got that.”

Renee nodded. “Good.” She cleaned her plate slowly and carefully, savoring the food. “That’s the thing about fighting fire. We’ve done bad things, a lot of us.” She tilted her head back, towards the stars and the night sky. “But we get this second chance anyway.”

It wasn’t until the next day, until they started the ride back home to their station, Wymack driving one bus and Dan driving the other, that Neil spoke to Andrew again. It had already been late afternoon when they began the drive, on account of getting roped into helping one of the city crews work a burn. Now, as they drove into the evening, the bus grew quiet. Katelyn and Aaron were fast asleep, her curled up against his chest, and in the row behind them Nicky was stretched out like a starfish. Jean had earbuds in, listening to opera music that was just barely audible, while Robin leaned her head against the window and watched the mountains go by. Kevin was passed out against a window, but Andrew was still awake.

Neil leaned on his elbows, and reached across the aisle to tap Andrew’s seat.

“What,” Andrew asked, voice very low.

“Second chances,” Neil said. “I talked to Renee.”

Andrew nodded. Then he raised his eyebrows, waiting for Neil to continue.

“If I ask something, will you tell me the truth? You already figured out something about me, so it’s fair.”

A little furrow appeared between Andrew’s eyes. “Fine.”

“Was this your second chance?”

Andrew was quiet for a very long time. They passed under a bridge and the highway curved; the last light of the dying sun caught in his hair, spangled gold. He said, “Second chance, third chance, fourth chance. It was the only chance that mattered.”

“Why?”

“That’s two truths.”

“It’s elaboration on one truth.”

“It’s two truths.”

Neil rolled his eyes.

“It was the chance that I took,” Andrew said.

* * *

Hypothetically, their schedule over the months of fire season should continue to reflect the pattern of fourteen days on, fourteen days off. Unsurprisingly, this was shot to hell only four days after they returned to their station.

“Mendocino,” Seth said to Dan at lunch, sitting down to inhale a donut.

“Aw, fuck,” came from Katelyn’s end of the table.

“Mendocino?” Robin asked.

When nobody answered, busy caught up in their own conversations, Neil said, “It’s a national forest, northwest of here.”

“So I should probably go wash my extra uniform then,” Robin said after a moment.

Dan let out a sigh. “Yeah, probably.”

It felt like, as the weeks went by, every fire they were assigned to was bigger, hotter, more destructive. When Neil said this aloud, Andrew made a noise, and Jean sighed.

“What?” Neil asked.

“Kevin and Seth,” Renee elaborated for him. “The only thing they can agree on is this.”

“This what?”

Kevin slammed his own pack down and began reorganizing it. He said, with surprising vitriol, “We’ve spent decades in this land. The people who lived here before we colonized it? They spent _centuries_.”

“Here he goes,” Allison said, picking at her nail polish.

“What?” Kevin challenged. “Like I’m wrong?”

“Climate change,” Aaron pointed out. “Fuck off, Day, I’ll play devil’s advocate.”

“Climate change,” Kevin said, and threw his hands up. “We spent so long just – suppressing _all_ the fire, but forests are alive. Forests need the fire, and they have for thousands of years, and we’ve come along and just – ”

“Fucked it seven ways to hell,” Seth said.

“And climate change means that everything is dry, and more of the west burns every year,” Kevin said. “Climate change isn’t – the other side, climate change is just another catalyst. We’ve picked the absolute worst time to dig our heels in on these policies. This landscape was once the product of a centuries-long effort by Indigenous peoples, and now it’s in the hands of bureaucrats who think they need to have ten conference calls in order to even look at a drip torch. They don’t seem to realize that the difference between an unhealthy and a healthy environment, between danger and preservation, is simply how willing we are to _act,_ and more than that, to listen to the people who have taken care of this land for far longer than we have.”

Andrew handed Kevin a granola bar, and he took it rather mulishly.

“Feel better now?” Dan asked.

“While what Kevin says is important and true,” Thea told Robin and Neil, “he also speaks as if he’s in front of a camera.”

Jean said, with a completely straight face, “He did high school debate.”

“Like a _nerd_!” Katelyn called.

“You realize I’m a nerd, correct?” Aaron could be heard asking her.

“I know, honey,” Katelyn said. “I love you in spite of it, not because of it.”

On the way to Mendocino National Forest, Aaron told Neil to stop moping in a corner. Neil retaliated with something sharp before he even noticed he was talking, which was something he really thought his mother had trained out of him. He froze, even as Nicky laughed and Jean hid a smile and Kevin rolled his eyes in that way that meant he was actually far more amused than he was letting on.

Andrew put his hand on the back of Neil’s neck, which was apparently a perfectly normal thing for him to do since it wasn’t the first time he’d done it. Neil didn’t really think it was perfectly normal, and Robin seemed to share that opinion, but Neil had also found that it was – grounding, in a way. Andrew was grounding, in a way. Solid and unshakeable.

“If you’re going to have an aneurysm,” Andrew told him, “please vomit out the window.”

Aaron rubbed his face. “That’s not how that works.”

The chain of command on the Mendocino fire was larger, and the fire operation itself larger too. Their first few days stretched into hours of overtime, dirt and dust and the moonscape of the flames. It was comfortable, or getting there, besides the exhilaration of walking into a potentially life-threatening situation and then having to walk back out, and before Neil blinked they were almost halfway through the roll, halfway to heading home. Home – Neil shook his head. One of the other hotshot crews was firing pistol rounds into the burn side of the road, the flares sparking as they disappeared into the inferno. The edges of the fire flickered and rippled as the Foxes hiked by, and Neil blinked at the sound of the shots. His shoulders tensed, just a little bit, and he kept his eyes on Matt, ahead of him. He knew what a therapist would say, on bad days. Breathe in, and out.

It was easier to just focus on the rhythm of his feet. This wasn’t an issue; in fact, their crew might have to do that at some point, since it was an easy way to reach deeper into the burns, into places that were difficult to get to on foot. And it wasn’t like Neil was afraid of guns, or anything.

He was just, he thought, having a bad day.

“Neil,” Nicky said.

Neil’s head shot up.

Nicky offered a water bottle, like that was no big deal. Neil glanced over his shoulder, and found Andrew watching like usual, before his gaze dropped to whatever he was talking to Thea about.

“Thank you,” Neil said, and took the water.

Nicky shrugged, one of his dark curls poking out from under the yellow hardhat. “It was from Andrew. He’s the only one other than Matt willing to lug around that much extra water. They’re the crew moms, and all.”

Neil felt a smile flicker on his mouth. “The crew moms.”

Nicky shot him a sideways glance and laughed. “I know, you wouldn’t expect it of Andrew, would you.” He sounded almost affectionate. “Even my brooding cousin has his good days.”

Neil thought about this. “No,” he said. “I’d expect it.”

A beat of silence, then Nicky agreed, “You probably would.”

Neil wasn’t sure if this was a compliment or not, so he just didn’t respond.

They spent a few hours prepping a line along a road, waiting for the fire to come. They weren’t on their own as much here, Dan and Thea and Seth working with someone in command that Neil didn’t really bother to watch too closely. They took a break for lunch, stealing bites of granola bars and dried fruit and sips of water as others worked on clearing away dangerous branches or trees.

“You’re keeping an eye out,” Seth told Neil, and Neil nodded at him. Smoke drifted, the sky yellow and black. He watched the fire, watched it roar and flicker and devour the trees, watched for sparks that might leap the road.

“Josten,” someone called.

Neil tilted his head. One of the pines lit up, prepped by a crew earlier in the day. It was no danger.

“Josten,” came the voice, and it was Allison, sounding unhappy.

“Yeah?” He replied.

“One of the city guys is talking down to Cross over there. Just come with me and look menacing, ok?”

“No offense,” Neil said, fully intending to offend, “but you’re half a foot taller than me on a bad day.”

Allison muttered something that might have been _smartass_ , but Neil couldn’t really hear her over the fire. He gave her a salute in return.

“Good god,” Allison said. “You need to stop hanging out with Minyard.”

Neil ignored this. “I need to keep a look out.”

"Renee’s going to.”

Neil glanced over; Renee raised a hand, forty feet down the road. “Right,” he said.

Neil’s attention was still drawn to the fire, but he stood with his axe in his hands on the road as Allison crouched down next to Robin and sent the city guy running. When Robin got to her feet, Neil shifted his weight and turned.

“Look,” Allison said. “Do you think you’re going to be ok?”

Robin breathed out, and then breathed in. He’d grabbed her, it looked like, pulling her back and almost tripping her off the road. Innocuous perhaps, but Neil knew how even such small things could hurt.

Robin said, “I’ll be fine.”

“Cause – look,” Allison gestured around them. It was one in the afternoon, according to Neil’s watch. The sky swirled with the thick, dark smoke. “Everything’s on fire.”

Robin snorted; it sounded kind of like she was going to cry. “Yeah, that’s why we’re here.”

“Bitch,” Allison said, with very little heat behind it. “I need to know you can handle this.”

Neil put a hand on the back of Robin’s neck, like Andrew did for him. It was grounding, wasn’t it. He thought it was. He hoped she’d think it was.

Robin held her head up. “I can handle this.”

Allison hefted her axe. “Then let’s go.”

Throughout the rest of the day, Allison kept an eye on Robin, and on Neil too. After Neil got over the slight paranoia of someone constantly watching, he realized it was kind of – nice. Someone watching out for him. He figured, then, that since he ended up bedding down near Robin, and when he noticed that Robin also wasn’t going to sleep, he should be the one to watch out for her.

Robin was sitting up, staring at the horizon. Peering like she could see all the way to the smoke and the trees, into the heart of the flames they hiked through. Neil didn’t really like talking to people. He never had. He might be good at it, but he didn’t have to like it. He sat down next to her anyway.

“There was a man,” Robin said. “Who grabbed me.”

Neil nodded.

“I killed him.”

Neil nodded again. He really wasn’t surprised.

“Would you say something?” Robin asked.

“I don’t think you should have been put in prison,” Neil told her. “But people don’t tend to listen to me on things like that.” Then, “I more or less killed my father, so.”

Robin snorted. She was quiet for a while. They were far enough from the rest of the crew, but still. “It’s just, I know that he’s dead. But I still think he’s chasing me.”

Neil nodded. “Yeah.” He didn’t tell her about the years of his life he spent running from his father, but he hoped the familiarity came across.

In the middle of the fires, everything became strange – they didn’t come across many living things, in the middle of raging infernos, but today Neil had found a rabbit, frozen in position, heart beating frantically. He hadn’t been able to do anything, just moved on quickly, but he hoped it’d gotten out of the fire. He hoped it’d found a way to survive.

“It’s like,” Robin said, “like I’m still being chased, but I’m chasing someone too. And it’s all wound up in my chest. The only time it gets better is when I’m out there, in the middle of it all, just focusing on the line. And then we get back out here,” she gestured, though to what, Neil wasn’t sure. (The sky? The cacophony of animal noises in the night?) “And it all comes back. It’s like I’m the scared person, and the person trying to justify the scared person. I don’t – I’m _not_ weak, don’t you dare think I am, but I’m both of those people at once.”

Neil knew this. He nodded again.

“Nothing feels right, unless I’m out there. I don’t think that’s supposed to be coping.”

“Yeah,” Neil said. “I felt like that once.”

Robin looked at him. “You did?”

“A therapist told me it was severe paranoia and post-traumatic stress.” Neil frowned. “I didn’t see her again.”

Robin made an aggravated noise. “You’re really bad at comforting people.”

Neil shrugged.

Robin hesitated, which was rather out of character for her. “Do you – need a hug?” It sounded like she was pulling teeth. “Or something?”

Neil glanced over at her. Her wide-eyed gaze was identical to his. He knew what the appropriate response to this was, even though he wished he didn’t. “Um. Do you?”

Robin shook her head violently, and Neil relaxed.

“It gets better,” Neil told her after a few minutes, which was strange because Neil was not often in the practice of even attempting to comfort people, much less people younger than him who had somehow lived just as bad a life.

“Does it?” Robin asked.

Neil glanced back at the fading embers of their fire, and the rest of the crew curled up in their sleeping bags. “Yeah,” he said. “It does.”

“Thank you,” Robin said, after a few minutes. “I haven’t had a friend in a while.”

“Me neither,” Neil told her, but he wondered if that was true. Then, hesitantly, “Thank you too.”

“Yeah,” Robin said. “Yeah.”

They silently and mutually agreed to go to bed, and when they rose with the sun in the morning, it was easy to fall into rhythm beside each other, without having to talk about anything at all.

Neil didn’t regret the conversation he had with Robin, though he wasn’t sure the same could be said for everyone else. Whether it was the new reassurance of Neil and Allison (and by extension, for some reason, Andrew and Jean) at her back, or whether it was simply because she was finally comfortable, the crew soon learned that left to her own devices, Robin was a sarcastic little shit.

“This is your fault,” Aaron said to Neil. “I don’t know how, but it is.”

“Not everything is my fault,” Neil replied, though he too was listening to Robin verbally berate Kevin.

“Lies,” Andrew said.

“ _Focus_ ,” Dan called down the line.

Most of their assignments went like that, Neil found. They were hotshots, and at the end of the day they knew exactly what they were doing – and when they didn’t, even he was learning how to improvise. It was their home, the strangeness of the environment, the colors, the hills and the heat. But they were also, at the end of the day, dumbasses.

“You think if I drink two five-hour energy drinks at the same time, it’ll add up to ten hours?”

“I am not a doctor, but I _am_ a paramedic and I _can_ tell you that is a horrible idea.”

Or –

“Here, I’ll trade you the chicken for your chili.”

“Yeah, sure – man, this is expired.”

“It was made during the Obama administration. It can’t be that bad.”

Or –

“So help me God, if you shits can’t get your acts together long enough to work this – ”

“Careful there, you’re channeling Wymack – Wilds, you’re holding a _chainsaw_ – ”

Or –

“Josten, you’re taking a picture of us holding our saws on this stump, and that’s an order.”

“There’s no need to look so fond,” Andrew told Neil as he took the aforementioned picture, the crew holding in position. They were waiting for a command from the handcrew working ahead, and so for a moment they could stop just to appreciate the sun cutting through the smoke, filtering between the huge tree trunks.

“Why not?” Neil asked, with far more raw honesty than he’d meant to.

This, for some reason, aggravated Andrew to no end. Enough so that he had to turn away, tilt his head towards the fire. Neil wished, oddly, that he weren’t wearing his hardhat, so that the rays of the afternoon sun cutting through the smoke would have a chance to light up his curls.

“Horrible,” Andrew said, like he could hear what Neil was thinking.

Neil didn’t really think it was as insulting as Andrew was trying to make it sound. “You’re also choosing to work here.”

“Horrible,” Andrew said again, maybe more emphatically.

* * *

Summer hit full-force, and with both Robin and Neil finally comfortable, life in and out of the station also grew much more comfortable. Wymack directed trainings of various kinds, and managed to corral them into doing continuing education classes when they weren’t out on assignments for the fire. He – and Dan – heavily implied that they thought Neil should go ahead and get his EMT certification, which was a little bizarre to think about, that he could be in the business of trying to save lives other than his own. But after grudging and not-so-grudging encouragement from Aaron and Kevin respectively, he filled out some forms, borrowed Thea’s old textbook, and started reading.

In between all the work, though, the early morning hikes and the group meals and the late nights, Neil finally figured out that the feeling in his chest was _home_.

"Hey, Josten,” someone called, and Neil’s brow furrowed.

He stuck his head through the doorway, into the dark kitchen, and found an unlikely group of people – Matt, Renee, Seth, Thea, Jean, a rather aggravated-looking Aaron. Most of the lights in the kitchen were off except the TV, which was set to a news channel showing footage of the Red Salmon Fire. It was late, and there were a few beers on the table, but more than that there were cards and a few small pieces. This seemed to be the cause of Aaron’s concern.

“Come play,” Matt said.

Neil wavered in the doorway, unsure if he wanted to go back to his room where Andrew undoubtedly was. He was unsure if that would be better or worse than this.

“Come on,” Matt urged, and Renee gave him one of her friendly smiles.

“They are going to steal your money,” Jean told Neil crisply as he sat down. “They are going to steal your money, and they are going to put it up their asses.”

Neil blinked at Jean. “I don’t have any money.”

Seth snorted. “Metaphorical money.”

Jean waved a hand at him. “Semantics.”

Thea rolled a dice and stared at them all, and then Matt jumped and put down his hand and swept all his little pieces into a card house. Neil, frankly, had no clue what they were doing. Neither, it seemed, did Jean.

“Metaphorical money,” Aaron added. “Of which you have none.”

Jean elbowed him. “Semantics.”

The dice was rolled, the five of them (excluding Matt) stuck their hands out and glared at each other (excluding Renee), and then Jean dropped his little chip.

“Ah,” Thea made a noise. “Shouldn’t have done that, Jean Valjean.”

Jean gave her a very put-upon face. It was the most expression Neil had seen on his face in recent history. It was pretty funny.

“What does that mean?” Neil asked.

They all stared at him. Renee counted up chips and prompted another roll of the dice. There was a small smile playing around her mouth.

"What?” Seth finally replied. “Jean Valjean?”

“Yes,” Neil replied. “Andrew says it a lot, too.”

Several things happened at once.

“You talk to _Andrew_?” Seth stared at Neil.

“You talk to Andrew,” Aaron also said, sounding significantly more exhausted.

Matt handed Renee some money and then asked, “Were you raised under a rock?”

Thea just laughed and laughed.

“You know he’s my roommate, right?” Neil told Seth and, by extension, the rest of them.

"Yeah but it’s Minyard,” Seth replied. “It took him a month and a half to clock that I existed.”

“Actually,” Aaron said, and sighed. “That’s pretty good, for him. Jean Valjean,” he said in response to Neil. “A character in a famous musical. He kills himself dramatically. It is, aptly named, Les Miserables.” Even Neil could tell that he butchered the pronunciation – _lez miserabels._

“Please,” Jean said. “Shut up.”

“French bastard,” Aaron told him.

“ _Americans_ ,” Jean replied, with equal disgust.

“I love you guys,” Matt said fondly. Then, “Hey, Neil, you ok?”

Neil looked at all of them, and could feel the smile curving around his lips. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m ok.”

On their morning run the next day, Andrew asked, “Why do you keep acting so skittish?”

Neil squinted at him, trying to figure out if this was a question posed as a question, or a question posed as an exchange for a truth.

Andrew huffed out something that might have been amusement. “Yes, you may ask a question too.”

Neil thought about this. Ahead of him, Seth and Dan were running side-by-side, earbuds in. Matt loped along near Dan, and Renee’s birdlike laughter drifted from next to Allison. Behind them were the rest of the crew, at a slower pace. Neil said, “Some days things are ok, and some days they aren’t.”

“That’s not really an answer.”

“It’s all I have.”

Andrew hm-ed but didn’t push, which surprised Neil until he realized it didn’t surprise him at all.

“How’d you end up in firefighting, anyway? Really.”

Andrew didn’t answer for long enough that they reached the turnaround point in their run. When he did, it was deliberate and slow, like he thought out every word. Like there’d been a point in time when he didn’t. He said, “It was the option that was open to me.”

Neil counted his strides carefully. He kept his pace carefully slower, so Andrew could keep up. He said quietly, “Yeah.” He said, “Is it a bad one?”

Andrew scoffed, but didn’t answer. He didn’t say anything else until they were back at the start, until they were gathering around to stretch because Kevin knew what he was talking about, and everyone knew that even when he was being a bit of an ass. They stretched in the scraggly grass under the morning sun, and Neil tilted his head towards the warmth even as he bent over to reach his toes. Matt – far less flexible – mumbled something indistinct and uncomplimentary towards Kevin. Neil snorted, and Matt shot him a sideways smile. Across the circle, Aaron and Andrew elbowed each other, and Katelyn reached out to slap them, her eyes closed. Robin made a face and then froze when Seth made one back. Neil was pretty sure that, on the other side of the road, Wymack was taking pictures.

“Is it impossible to ask you all to focus?” Kevin asked.

Various noises of agreement sounded around the stretch circle.

Back at the station, fresh out of the shower, Andrew sat himself down across from Neil. His hair was wet and curly, and the edges of his armbands were damp. Neil idly wondered what was under them, then changed his mind. Whatever Andrew had to hide was not his to take unless he gave something of equal value in return. Things were simple with Andrew, who he now thought of as more than just his bizarre roommate (though he likely wouldn’t admit it) – the world certainly wasn’t black and white, but sometimes just feeling equal with someone was the difference between a good day and a bad one.

“You are the provider,” Neil read out loud, when it seemed that nothing was forthcoming from Andrew. “I hope I’m not the provider.”

Andrew snorted. “EMT is common sense.”

“Says you,” Neil said, staring down at the passage in the book.

“Says me,” Andrew agreed. “It’s not a bad option.”

When Neil looked up, he could tell this was the answer to more than one question. He didn’t respond for a while, but he didn’t look back down at the textbook, either. Just watched Andrew, and Andrew watched him back, and it was remarkably calm.

“Ok,” Neil said. “Yeah.”

Kevin sat down after a while and nattered back and forth with Andrew in the way that they did, wherein they insulted each other but also shot rapid-fire references back and forth so fast that nobody without some level of telepathy should be able to understand. Neil, who at a certain point lost most (if not all) interest in the conversation other than the warmth that came along with just sitting and being with people whom he called friends, went back to reading. He expressed slight confusion in regards to the circulatory system, and after a while Kevin gave him some bizarre rundown of the entire anatomy unit that was both long-winded and startlingly useful to Neil. And after a while Aaron sat down and began bickering with Kevin in a way that was eerily reminiscent of Andrew or maybe Jean, and after a while Matt yelled for Andrew to come defeat someone in some video game, and Kevin wandered towards where Dan was mapping out satellite footage of fires. And then it was just Aaron, watching Neil, watching Aaron. One of them was far less subtle than the other, and it wasn’t Neil.

“I don’t really like you,” Aaron said.

“Ok,” Neil told him. “I don’t really like you either.”

“Look,” Aaron said. “Look at me, Josten.”

Neil looked at him. Aaron’s face wasn’t anything like Andrew’s, not even though they were the same – Aaron had a quiet calmness in his eyes, whereas Andrew had an impassive strength. He waited. “I’m looking. I don’t like your face that much.”

Aaron rolled his eyes and shoved Neil’s head away, carefully. “My brother used to be an asshole.”

They both reflected on this statement.

“More of an asshole,” Aaron amended.

“You’re an asshole,” Neil told him.

“ _Anyway_ ,” Aaron said. Neil took a perverse pleasure in the way that he ground his teeth together. “There was a point in time where he – felt the need to protect me, all the time.”

“Doesn’t he still?”

“Yes, but not as much.”

“Is there a point to this conversation? Because I have better things to do.”

“Don’t we all,” Aaron muttered. “Look, I’m just saying – this crew. This is our home. Our – family. It’s helped us put our lives back together.”

This was much more personal detail than Neil really needed or cared about. He edged away. “Ok?”

“Jesus Christ,” Aaron finally snapped. “Look, if you hurt my brother, I’m dumping you off a cliff. Nobody can take away my medic certs if nobody knows.”

“Why would I – I’m not going to hurt Andrew.”

“Good. Now let’s forget this conversation ever happened.”

Neil found this all rather bizarre. “Let’s.” He looked down at the page in the textbook, before glancing back up with a grin. “I’m part of this crew. Am I your _family_?”

Aaron made a face like it was high time for him to start considering murder as an occupation, and Neil, who still had a fair amount of survival instincts left over, thank you very much, moved away quickly.

* * *

The months blurred, a little bit. Being a hotshot, Neil thought, was all that it was cracked up to be and more, though he wasn’t sure he would’ve thought that if his mother hadn’t raised him the way she had. For the first time ever that didn’t hurt – the thought of his mother, of the years of running and pain he had lived. It had gotten him here, watching the rest of the crew, watching them grow and train. Wasn’t that worth it?

The fires got worse, and then they got better, and then they got worse again. They spent the in-between days at the station, and spent the rest of the time on the road. Neil found he could sleep in the presence of any of the Foxes, because exhaustion and trust were strange new partners in his world. Their crew clocked hours and hours of overtime too, and it was on such hours of overtime that they found themselves returning to base camp one evening, a day or so after they had been supposed to leave. They were exhausted and a little grumpy, but that all changed as soon as Nicky shouted, “Neil! C’mere, you and Robin have to meet my husband!”

Neil was surprised by the level at which Nicky shouted, but he was even more surprised by the speed at which Jean, impassive and deadpan, sprinted towards the campsite.

“If we moved that fast normally,” Dan said. “I think we’d get a lot more done.” Neil laughed, and Dan smiled at him like she was proud, which was strange but nice. Then she said, “Just roll with the PDA.”

Neil shrugged. “I don’t care.”

“Alright.” Dan was looking at him with her head tilted. “And Jeremy and Jean are – weird, but…”

Neil glanced at her. “I really could not care less.”

Dan laughed a little, curls bouncing around her face. “Just wanted you to know. We’re all a little weird, and we’ve all got backstories we don’t like to share. But we’ve learned how to coexist, and we’re happy. They’re happy, as strange as they are.”

Neil realized suddenly that this was Dan’s own form of protectiveness, and things straightened out. “I know,” he said, and smiled at her, the smile that didn’t pull at the scars on his face too bad. The one that hadn’t ever really appeared that much until Neil started working with the Foxes. “I’m – I’m glad to see you guys happy.”

“I know what you mean,” Dan said. “Friends, am I right?”

Neil tripped over a loose rock. “We’re friends?”

“No shit, Sherlock, of course we’re friends.” She laughed. “At this point you’ve seen most of us naked or pissing in bushes. Josten, you’ve been with us at our best and you’ve been with us at our worst. I’m pretty sure that’s more in the territory of family than friend.”

Then she pushed forward into the clearing, like she hadn’t just upended Neil’s entire world.

Wymack was the one who noticed him hanging back, and gestured with a vaguely confused expression. Neil edged more towards the middle, and the full force of (most) of the Foxes turned on him and Robin. Erik Klose was a quiet kind of man, while Jeremy Knox may very well have been sunshine personified. Two other women, both laughing and smiling, introduced themselves as Laila Dermott and Sara Alvarez. The four smokejumpers held themselves with the kind of strength that Neil had noticed was common in wildland firefighters, the kind that was steely-eyed and strong-willed.

“Neil,” Jeremy said, in the kind of jovial tone that, in Neil’s limited experience, normally preceded smothering hugs or possibly puppies. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

Neil, who was still – yes, he knew, still – thrown off by this, said to Jean, “You talk about me?”

Jean glared. “There’s no need to sound so pleased.”

“ _I_ talk about you,” Nicky told Neil. “Apple of my eye.”

“As always, it is a joy to be here,” Laila said.

"We’re fun, at least,” Katelyn replied, slinging an arm over her shoulder.

“Pfft,” Allison said. “Jumping out of helicopters is for weaklings.”

“Real men,” Seth added, with a completely straight face, “walk themselves into the flame.”

This spurred yet more laughter, and jokes, the kind of jokes tailored to people who knew each other best. And Neil was included – Neil was once known, twice known, and he backed away from it, not running but definitely backpedaling quickly. A bad day, then. What did you say to people who’d known you for only a fraction of your life, and yet had already bothered to know you far more than anyone you’d ever met?

Andrew found him, because of course Andrew found him. Neil honestly wouldn’t be surprised if Andrew had extra eyes, watching all of them, keeping an eye out on the crew, even Jean and even Allison and even Seth. Neil would laugh at that, except Neil was still getting over the fact that he was one of the aforementioned crew. He wasn’t quite sure why he was having this realization now, except maybe Dan saying it out loud made it sound real. Not real – within reach. So within reach, he could almost touch it.

He knew what a therapist would say. There were good days and bad days. Too bad today was a bad day.

“Neil,” Andrew said.

“I’m not real,” Neil told him. “I’m not. My name isn’t even Neil.”

“Yes it is,” Andrew said, eyes even. “Your name is Neil Josten, and you are real.”

“But I’m not,” Neil said, pleading. “I’m not. There’s nothing real about me.”

“That’s not true.”

“What?”

“You like peppers. That’s real.”

After a moment, Neil reluctantly said, “Yes.”

Andrew went on. “You like Disney movies, and that stupid fucking game that Gordon and Moreau keep playing.”

“You like that game, too,” Neil said.

Andrew gave him an unamused look, then kept speaking. “You always wear matched socks, though God knows why, and the fact that you eat every single thing they serve us out on the line without hesitating is disgusting for the fact that you didn’t know what cobbler was until a month ago. You love the fires, love being out in them even if you pretend you don’t. Robin trusts you, and you’re one of the only people who can stand Kevin for long periods of time, and when you talk people listen. That’s all real.”

Neil swallowed.

“You’re real.”

Neil almost couldn’t breathe. He looked over at Andrew, and that was when he realized Andrew was looking back. “You like me,” Neil finally said.

Andrew’s eyes shot away. “Fuck off,” he muttered immediately. “I hate you.”

“No,” Neil said. “You like me. You _like_ me.”

Andrew moved to stand up, and Neil’s hand shot out. Not to grab him, not to restrain him. Andrew stilled anyway. “What are we,” he spat out. “High school girls?”

“I like you too,” Neil said, all at once. “You make me feel real.”

Andrew was glaring, but it wasn’t the kind of glare that was angry. It was more like that first time all those weeks (months?) ago, when the crew had gotten split. It was the kind of glare that said something about _feelings_.

Neil smiled without meaning to.

“You don’t need me to make you feel real,” Andrew said. “You are real.”

“Yeah,” Neil said, kind of quietly. “But it’s nice to have someone remind me of it, sometimes.”

Andrew rolled his eyes and stepped forward, raising muscled arms and hovering his hands very carefully over Neil’s shoulders. “Yes, or no?”

Neil thought about this. “Yes.”

It honestly felt kind of cliché, kissing at sunset, if you ignored the raging wildfire several miles away. Andrew was sweaty, and Neil knew he was sweaty, and both their mouths tasted like maybe-kinda-slightly-expired chicken and rice in a bag, and they both reeked of smoke. It was steady, though. It was Andrew, and the Foxes, and the sorts of tangible things that Neil was beginning to let himself have.

Andrew pulled back eventually, and Neil did too.

“Stop smiling like that. Your face is going to get stuck.”

“Nah.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“Apparently, I’m not,” Neil said, rather gleefully. He thought he might be giddy, be high on the adrenaline of it, the way they all grinned when they were running at dusk and setting strips of grass on fire. “Apparently, you _like_ me.”

Andrew pinched the bridge of his nose. “I hate you.”

If Neil didn’t know better, he’d say it was the same expression Aaron made the one time Katelyn put ghost peppers and water in a blender and drank the resulting concoction. The warm feeling in Neil’s stomach at this comparison wasn’t unfamiliar, and he realized then that the source wasn’t, either. As Andrew walked him back towards their camp, back towards their crew, Neil tried not to spend too much time lingering over the feelings, parsing them out. After all, he’d have time to do that.

He had, he realized, all the time in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> if you want to learn more about hotshots/wildland firefighters (cause lets face it theyre badass) check out kwmiller945 on instagram or look up info from the forest service!! 
> 
> kudos and comments are crack and come check me out on [tumblr](https://stormwarnings.tumblr.com/) :D


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